China to reward welfare lottery buyers

Lottery ticket buyers in China may receive as much as 15 million yuan (about US$2.36 million) by spending just two yuan for a welfare lottery ticket.

Starting from October 20, any player who wins the ShuangSeQiu ("Double Colored Ball"), China's biggest welfare lottery, will receive a bonus of 5 million yuan, the country's Welfare Lottery Distribution and Management Center said on Tuesday.

The maximum prize amount is currently capped at 10 million yuan.

The move is aimed at rewarding the public for their contribution to the welfare lottery program, as annual sales of lottery tickets have reached nearly 100 billion yuan, according to the center.

The total bonus amounts to 200 million, which will be given out over the course of 40 lottery drawing days at a rate of 5 million per day, the center said.

The bonus prize marks the sixth large-scale reward initiative to be launched since the Double Colored Ball lottery was kicked off in 2003.

In the first eight months of this year, China's sales of welfare lottery tickets increased 33.4 percent year on year to reach 80.9 billion yuan, with total lottery sales breaking 138 billion, according to statistics from the Ministry of Finance.